


Windows to The Soul

by PacificaeMors



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PacificaeMors/pseuds/PacificaeMors
Summary: A collection of snippets and character studies for Transformers, Megatron-centric.
Kudos: 7





	Windows to The Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline on this one is wobbly, but takes place somewhere between the Fall of Cybertron and the events of TFPrime.

He was so angry — so very angry that it hurt.

Metal squealed between his claws as he tore through another prisoner, circuitry sparking feebly, oils spattering his arms and chassis. More came from the left, but he’d already ducked and unsheathed the shortblade for them, ramming and buckling another body.

It was messy; every hit was unrestrained, every twist and pivot was like a strike of its own. His frame rattled, his joints straining. Knockout would give him pit for the self-inflicted damage — or would have, if he’d had the spine.

He knew the cruelty wouldn’t quell his rage; knew it clearly and coldly, at a distance and calm. Another mech crunched beneath his pede, all the same. This time he saw the moment the blue optics guttered, and sank his teeth into satisfaction.

“No-!” From the left, the only survivor. He tore the femme’s helm free and hurled it so the processors shattered like glass. The spark died on its own, in medical shock and hobbled.

Silence fell around him. He was rigid, every ache in stark relief against the backdrop of empty space with nothing left to kill.

“Are you finished?” His audience asked, tone flat and unreadable.

“Have the cell-blocks been emptied?” Megatron snapped back, not bothering to disguise the venom he could taste in his mouth.

“Like so much fuel wasted, yes.” There it was — not in the tone, not in the way he stood, but in the words themselves. Condemnation. Disapproval.

Megatron rolled his helm on its bearings stiffly, denta baring like a smile. “Perhaps you’d like to step up next, then.”

“No thanks, I’d rather not indulge your tantrums.”

He snapped his gaze to where Starscream stood, halfway concealed in shadows near the door. “This was justified.” Fury commanded the words out unadorned, plain and brutal, cleverness abandoned. “It was necessary.”

“Of course. And you just happened to enjoy every minute of it.”

“If I recall correctly, it wasn’t me who laughed when Praxus fell beneath the sword.”

The red slits of Starscream’s optics narrowed. “Praxus had a chance against me.”

Megatron snorted. “These,” He gestured at the corpses piled high around. “Had chances too. They could have saved themselves easily. With good planning, any one of them could be alive this very moment.”

“Of course, if they’d surrendered and done any other stupid thing you asked. At which point you may have killed them anyway.”

“You think so? You so readily assume the worst, it’s almost wounding.”

“You’ve done it before, and don’t you dare pretend you haven’t. Not to me.” Starscream’s own control was slipping; his voice had raised, his claws visibly digging into his arms even from this distance. “I don’t care about them, don’t mistake me. They were Autobots. But you…”

Starscream paused, then shoved with surprising force off of the wall, stalking forward. “Isn’t it always you, who says he so much better? Always boasting and carrying on about your superiority — but the very instant it’s convenient, who’s the first to point out how similar he is to everyone else who’s ever failed to be better?”

Megatron refrained from lunging forward by pure force of will. “I am better. You’re the one calling this-” he threw his arms towards the bodies, sneering. “-a failing, Starscream. I’m just refusing to let you. It was precisely as it needed to be.”

“You beat your way through fifteen unarmed prisoners to punish a Prime a thousand light-years away who won’t even hear of it except as a tertiary report.” Starscream snapped, voice clipped. “He may lose precisely four vorns of sleep feeling guilty for some incomprehensible reason, and be otherwise unaffected. Informants we could have used, you wasted. I would dearly love for you to explain to your Second-In-Command precisely why you did that.”

There was no groveling, and in the flitting, instinct-quick parts of his processor, Megatron reveled in that fact. Starscream’s optics were burning, his frame was poised to strike, coiled like a — well, like a Seeker’s. He was so angry that he’d forgotten Megatron could kill him, but he certainly hadn’t forgotten the reverse.

It was just as Megatron remembered best, and for a moment it was easier to pretend a smile.

“But of course, Starscream. You need only ever ask.

“I did it because Prime won’t lose just four vorns of sleep, he’ll lose a platoon of his Spec Ops Division. I did it because, regardless of whatever pleasure I justifiably took in ending their miserable lives, the practical outcome remains the same: The Autobots will believe these prisoners were killed as an act of passion, not because that one-“ He threw a servo in the direction of the beheaded femme, her processors still shattered. “-was one of five operators carrying specs for a new warship they’ve been siphoning off of a lab on Perelion V; an operation they will continue to believe we know nothing about.

“I did it because four of these bodies belonged to the criminal group that crippled Thundercracker so recently.

“I did it because two of them betrayed Swindle on Arctarial Providencial.

“I did it because all of these prisoners were placed in this ship’s cell-blocks for specific reasons, for the same end; which you were not privy to because I didn’t need you to know.”

Starscream had deflated — but only very slightly. A new fire burned in his optics, an indignant one. A betrayed one. A very familiar one, in short. Left out of the loop again, and the idiot had only himself and his past ten decacycles of betrayal to blame.

“And the extras?”

Megatron grinned. “Those were to make it believable.”

Starscream glared. “The four mechs you’ve just shredded had crippled Thundercracker on my orders.” The seeker bit out, the hiss stinging against Megatron’s faceplates. “It prevented him from doing something colossally stupid.”

Megatron blinked, so bemused that the tight heat in his chassis nearly went out. “How unfortunate that you didn’t inform me. I might have spared your pawns.”

Starscream’s lip curled so impressively into contorted his entire face. “I don’t need you to spare my pawns, and I don’t need you to protect what’s mine. Thundercracker,” He spat, possessiveness in every syllable, frame bristling, “Is my trinemate.” His optics flicked to the insignia on Megatron’s chassis, and for a moment sparked with unadulterated hatred. “He is mine before he’s yours. And I didn’t tell you the plan because I didn’t need you to know either.”

Megatron couldn’t have prevented his sneer if he’d tried, nor his step forward. “It doesn’t go both ways, Starscream. I’m above you in every way at the moment — by your own permission, if that mark on your wings still holds true. If you want your little machinations to go through unimpeded, I suggest you start admitting that, and come to me first.”

Trust. Give and take. Their age-old feud. But who would bend first?

He fully expected the scoffing snort, and the turn of the Seeker’s back as he started to stalk away. Broad wings cut through the shadows, stiff and bold. “One day, this stupidity will destroy everything you’ve built.” Starscream threw back over his shoulder, and it sounded almost bitter; disappointed.

Megatron adeptly ignored the sinking in his chassis that felt the same.

“Then I suggest you learn your lesson, quickly.” He replied, and the words echoed back to him from the far-flung walls.


End file.
